Pearl in a Cage

by Joy Dettman

The in-laws were leaner, less vocal. They stepped to the side, stepped back, found walls to get their backs against. Amber got her back to a wall, got her hands protectively across her stomach.

  Horrie Bull, armed with the hotel’s trolley, came up the platform, fearing his next few days but mentally totalling up the money. His first approach was to the in-laws, who in turn approached their partners, but Duckworths had a way of discounting others when surrounded by their own. Conversations unfinished on the train must be finished, sisters unseen in twelve months must be told twelve months of news. Now. Not later.

  ‘Just make sure I’m at the same hotel as Louise, I said.’

  ‘Tell them we need a room adjacent to the bathroom,’ Louise said.

  They didn’t know what they were in for — nor did Woody Creek.

  The sheer bulk of Duckworths overwhelmed Norman’s little station; for ten minutes, the sorting out of them, the finding of and identifying of luggage, overwhelmed Norman. But he was a methodical man when armed with his lists. He sorted his relatives. He separated them. The three male cousins, late inclusions, initially allocated to the hotel, were scratched out and reallocated to Maisy and George Macdonald; Louise and husband reallocated to the hotel. Vern and Joanne Hooper had a large house — they took two couples, plus two female cousins. Lonnie and Nancy Bryant, who owned land four miles west of town, had plenty of spare, if worn, bedrooms. Norman allocated them two pairs, plus his unwed Portsea uncle. Charlie and Jean White took two singles. Parson Charles and wife Jane had been allocated Cecelia’s vacated bed; their unwed son, Reginald, was to have bedded down in the nursery — until Norman sighted Aunty Lizzie, his maiden aunt, who had taken it into her head this morning to make the trip without her maiden sister. He scratched out Reginald, wrote in Lizzie, then scribbled parlour couch beside Reginald’s name. He was young. He could tolerate the discomfort.

  Horrie Bull took the rest. He and his trolley led them via a diagonal short cut, down a narrow path between tall dry grass, around a peppercorn tree and over a road to his hotel. Vern’s youngest daughter, Margaret, led the Hoopers’ guests down the same track, then continued on to Vern’s house, while Vern loaded five into his car and delivered them out to the Bryants’ farm.

  By eight o’clock, the town had absorbed, or been absorbed by, Norman’s relatives. By nine, they were fed; by eleven, all bar the three Box Hill cousins were in their beds. The cousins were playing poker in George Macdonald’s kitchen and telling tales out of school — about Norman.

  Nancy Bryant, three months past her sixtieth birthday, had washed the last of her guests’ dishes and reset her dining room for the onslaught of breakfast. She was emptying the dishwater onto her herb garden when she heard what sounded like an infant’s cry. Surely a night bird, though no bird she’d heard before in the near forty years she’d lived on this land. A feral cat perhaps. Unconvinced, she walked deeper into the yard.

  A country night is dark when the moon is hiding. Unable to see a foot in front of her, she returned to her enclosed porch for the lantern Lonnie had left burning there for his guests’ convenience.

  Chains rattled. The dogs were disturbed by that late light and by the scent of strangers, and as Nancy walked by their shed, old Boss-dog asked his low question.

  ‘Go to bed,’ she said, eager to go to her own.

  And she heard it again, louder this time, or louder because she was nearer. She’d borne seven children, was grandmother to twelve; she could recognise a baby’s cry when she heard it.

  She walked to the house fence where she swung her lantern, signalling to whoever was out there. ‘Hello,’ she called. ‘Hello out there?’

  No reply, and if she kept this up she’d disturb her guests, who had been sufficiently disturbed tonight when one of them had wanted a bath and been offered a small basin of precious tank water. She and Lonnie had done their best to make them comfortable but would be pleased to see their backs come morning. Family was one thing; they’d put up with what they got. Guests were something else.

  She yawned, turned back to the house and took two steps towards her bed. And there it was again, that tremulous wail of the newborn. There was someone out there, and she’d find them too — or old Boss-dog would.

  The lantern lighting its small circle, she walked across to the shed where five dogs were chained each night. Boss-dog was her mate, fifteen if he was a day, a kelpie/border collie cross and no smarter dog ever whelped. Folk laughed when she told them he understood every word she said. Well, let them laugh. She knew what she knew.

  ‘Where’s the baby?’ she said. ‘Go find the baby.’ She released him from the chain and the old dog, unaccustomed to attention at midnight, wriggled for more. ‘Where’s the baby? Go find the baby.’

  The grandkids played hide and seek with him. He knew the game, and if his eyesight wasn’t as good as it used to be, his hearing not so sharp, there was nothing wrong with his scenting ability. He laughed at her, got in the last lick, then ran to the house-fence gate.

  There was a time when he would have been up and over the gate without breaking his stride. Tonight he allowed her to open it. Then he was off, scouting the north paddock. She followed with her lantern, her eyes not much use outside its circle of light, her ears compensating.

  There were sheep in the far corner of the paddock. She heard a few sheepish complaints. Seconds later Boss-dog reported in.

  ‘It’s out there somewhere, boy. Go find the baby.’ He circled, seeking direction. She had none to give. ‘Go.’ She waved her arm in the general direction of the railway line and he took off again into the night.

  Try following a black dog across a paddock on a moonless night, she thought. It couldn’t be done.

  And she heard it again, not much more than a weary protest, but a baby’s protest and close by. Boss-dog heard it — and found it. He was calling her with his ‘over here’ yelp and she ran, her lantern lighting her feet, ran to the boundary fence.

  He was on the other side, in the scrubby gully beside the built-up railway line. She placed the lantern down and climbed between the wires. Her face at dog level was an opportunity too good to miss. Boss-dog stole a kiss then ran laughing back to his find.

  It wasn’t a baby. He’d found a woman lying face down. A black-clad, black-headed woman.

  ‘Are you all right, dear?’ She patted her shoulder, shook it. ‘Are you hurt, dear?’

  There was no response, or none from the woman.

  ‘God in heaven,’ she gasped as a newborn grunted at her elbow. It was entangled in the woman’s clothing.

  ‘Lonnie,’ she screamed. ‘Lonnie!’

  The house was too far away and Lonnie’s hearing worse than Boss-dog’s.

  ‘Go home,’ she said. ‘Get Lonnie. Lonnie. Home, boy. Go wake Lonnie.’

  Boss-dog took off across the paddock to do her bidding.

  One dog barking will set off the rest. The Bryants had five. Their chorus raised Lonnie and four of the five relatives.

  Until their dying days, those four would relate the tale of their night spent as guests of Lonnie and Nancy Bryant. The beds were old, the facilities archaic, the food heavy, the water rationed, and when Bessie found her way out of the rabbit warren of passages to ask if someone could please shut those dogs up, she found her hostess cutting an infant’s cord, with a kitchen knife — on the kitchen table.

  ‘Good God, woman!’

  Until her dying day, Bessie Watson, née Duckworth, would tell how she’d thought that woman had been getting a head start on her guests’ breakfasts.

  One of the male in-laws helped Lonnie carry the woman across two paddocks and lift her into the rear of the Bryants’ fancy gig. He assisted Nancy up to the seat, the baby held in her arms. All four relatives watched the lantern strapped to one of the cart’s shafts, then watched that meagre light fade off into the dark, while the dogs, aware their masters had left them in charge, took charge, determined to rid the property of the scent of stranger. Duckworths were loud,
but not as loud as five barking dogs.

  ‘It’s bedlam,’ Bessie yelled. ‘How are we supposed to sleep?’

  ‘How far out are we?’ Milly wailed.

  ‘Miles.’

  Only four miles, or four and a bit, and once out on the road it didn’t take long to get to town. The Bryants crossed over the bridge, considered turning left and down the forest road to Gertrude; considered waking Vern Hooper, who might drive that woman down to Willama; instead, they headed into town to rouse the constable.

  Ernie Ogden had great faith in Gertrude’s doctoring skills. He fetched his bike, lit his lantern, then rode before them through a mile of strung-out town and out along that dark bush road, not for the first time wishing Gertrude lived a bit closer in.

  No dog to give warning of their approach, she was sleeping soundly when Ernie knocked on her wall.

  She came towards his light, white-gowned, her long hair hanging. No need to ask who wanted her. Lonnie was behind Ogden, the woman in his arms, Nancy behind him, hugging a towel-wrapped infant to her breast.

  No room to put anything, anyone, down in Gertrude’s kitchen. She moved her lamp to the dresser, flung a blanket over the table, then Lonnie eased the woman down, the old table five and a half foot in length, was just long enough.

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Nancy found her in the gully beside the railway line —’

  ‘Boss-dog found her.’

  ‘We thought she could have been one of Monk’s mission girls. He’s got a couple of them working out there.’

  ‘She looks more Italian to me. Jenner’s got a couple of families of them out at his place,’ Ernie said.

  ‘How’s she going to get from his place out to ours?’ Lonnie said.

  ‘She wouldn’t have, not wearing that shoe,’ Gertrude said. The stranger’s right foot was shod, her left wasn’t. She removed the shoe, looked at its two-inch heel. ‘City,’ she said. ‘Light that lamp for me, Ernie.’

  Ernie lit it, set it on the washstand, placed his hurricane lantern on the stove hob and turned the wick high. Strange tall shadows playing on wall and ceiling, three shadows standing still, Gertrude’s ever moving.

  ‘No way of knowing how much blood she lost?’ Two shadows shook their head. ‘No one else around? How far from the road? She’s no tobacco grower’s wife,’ she said. The coat now off, a blood-soaked gold frock was exposed; a fancy thing, its yoke encrusted with beadwork. ‘She’s dressed for travelling.’

  ‘Lost a lot of blood by the look of it,’ Ernie said.

  ‘Births are bloody,’ Gertrude said, bundling the coat and pitching it through her open doorway. The men followed it outside as Gertrude reached for her scissors to cut the frock away.

  ‘Girl or boy?’ she asked, nodding towards the baby, now lying on her cane couch grunting.

  ‘Girl,’ Nancy said. ‘It’s such a pity to cut that frock, Mrs Foote. Blood will usually wash out.’

  They got it off intact. It followed the coat out the door. They bathed the woman, removed her stockings, bound her gashed knee. Apart from a few scrapes, it appeared to be the woman’s only injury. They clad her in one of Gertrude’s nightgowns, then called the men in to lift her onto the couch.

  Gertrude turned to the baby. She was a fragile little mite, but determined enough to make herself heard. By two, she was sleeping in a makeshift crib, the kettle had boiled and Nancy was pouring tea. They sat then, four sets of eyes watching that stranger, waiting for her to come around and tell them who she was.

  ‘She must have seen our light and tried to cut across the railway line towards it,’ Lonnie said. ‘The line’s built up high at the spot.’

  ‘What is a woman in her condition doing walking around in the dark?’ Ogden said.

  ‘Fell off the train?’ Gertrude said.

  ‘No one opens the doors of a moving train.’

  Then they heard her breathing stop, or heard her sigh out a breath and not bother to draw another.

  ‘No! Don’t you go doing that!’

  But she’d done it. She was gone and nothing Gertrude could do about it. She walked outside and Nancy wept.

  THE STRANGER

  The Bryants went home to their guests, Ernie went home to get an hour or two of sleep. Gertrude walked. She’d slept well before they’d come knocking and there was no sleep left in her.

  The wind had dropped sometime during the night. She hadn’t noticed when. The sky to the east was growing lighter. Dawn wasn’t far away, and maybe a better dawn.

  She glanced at the bloody towels, blanket and stained clothing piled against her outside wall. If she was going to get that blood out, she’d need to get them soaking. She gathered the load, carried it across to her shed-cum-washhouse, where she dumped the lot into a single wooden wash trough.

  A rainwater tank on her west wall supplied the water, though rain hadn’t supplied what was in it. Through the summer months she and her horse spent many an evening hauling water from creek to tank — and they’d be at it again by nightfall. It took eight buckets of water to half-fill that wash trough, which was as much as she could do in the dark.

  Little Elsie was still asleep in her corner. If she’d been aware of what had taken place in this room tonight, she’d made not a murmur. A shy and frightened little girl, it was unlikely she’d have murmured no matter what she’d seen.

  Wood in the stove, kettle filled, and Gertrude walked out into the first light to cut greens for her hens and goats, to beat the birds to two buckets of apricots. Each year she made a few dozen pots of apricot jam.

  She had four goats milking. It all took time. She fed her chooks, collected her eggs, and by seven was back at the trough, wringing out her washing for the clothes line.

  There was a bulge in one of the coat’s pockets. She reached in and withdrew a small purse, a pretty, hand-embroidered thing, six inches by four, the type of purse a woman might like to take out with her in the evening. Using the flat of her palms, she pressed excess water from it, then carefully opened it, seeking something that might identify the woman. There was little to find. A wet ten-shilling note, a few coins, a handkerchief and a soggy piece of brownish cardboard, which threatened to disintegrate when she tried to straighten it. She was using newspaper to press moisture from it when Ernie Ogden came back, Moe Kelly and his funeral van behind him.

  Moe took the stranger away. Ernie stayed on to drink a mug of tea and to study the stranger’s purse and its contents. The cardboard was still damp, but once flattened, it proved to be an old luggage label. Destination was printed clear, printed black, but where that destination might have been wasn’t clear. The ink used was red and had bled. They could make out a definite T and maybe what could have been an R or a P, then a clear V and a very definite Wood followed by a C, which had to be Woody Creek.

  ‘The T and V could be a name.’

  ‘Tom Vevers,’ Ernie said.

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘I’ll have a word with him.’ He spread the handkerchief on the table. It was a white lace-bordered thing with a blue JC embroidered in one corner.

  ‘She didn’t leave us much to go on,’ Gertrude said.

  ‘She could be one of Jenner’s Italians. I’ll get out there when the hour’s a bit more reasonable.’

  ‘You know his infant was born with a crippled foot?’

  ‘I heard. Damn unfair. He went right through that war, you know.’

  ‘Damn unfair.’ Gertrude turned again to the handkerchief. ‘At least we’ve got her initials.’

  ‘I wouldn’t place too much store in initials on a hanky, Trude. Folk find, borrow, lend, steal hankies.’

  ‘It looks like her — fits with what she was wearing. Dainty, pretty, city things. And look at that shoe.’

  ‘Not the sort most would choose to go walking across the countryside in.’

  ‘It screams of city store to me,’ Gertrude said. ‘Everything about that woman screams city store and money to spend in it. The frock she was wearing — t
he beadwork alone on it must have taken someone hours, days, to do. And I probably ruined it by washing it. Crepe has got a bad habit of shrinking when it contacts water.’

  ‘She was dressed for travelling, you thought.’

  ‘I’d stake my life on it. Any chance that she came in on the train last night?’

  ‘Squizzy Taylor could have come in on last night’s train toting two shotguns and not a soul would have noticed him amongst your son-in-law’s lot,’ Ogden said, standing up and draining the last drips from his mug. ‘And as much as I might like to, I can’t sit around here all day.’

  The babe was stirring. He watched Gertrude lift her from the makeshift crib, feel the makeshift napkin. ‘I’ll get her off your hands as soon as I can.’

  ‘She’s doing no harm, Ernie. She’s not doing a lot of anything, the poor wee mite.’

  The land around Woody Creek being flat as a tack made it good bike-riding country. Within minutes Ernie was back in town and approaching a group of strangers leaning against the pub wall, looking for something to look at and hard pressed to find it. He skidded his wheels to a halt beside them.

  ‘Morning,’ he said.

  They were a middle-aged to elderly lot, all males, bar one, and she sucking as heavily on a cigarette as they. He leaned his bike against a verandah post and took out his own packet, lit one.

  ‘You wouldn’t have a youngish woman in your group, would you, thirty-odd, long black hair?’ he asked, blowing smoke with the crowd. A bunch of heads shook in unison. ‘Any passengers you might have seen on the train who’d fit that description . . . dark complexion, wearing a black overcoat?’

  They were Duckworths, or wed to Duckworths; they’d seen nothing but other Duckworths. Ogden took two quick drags on his smoke, killed it, then pushed off towards the station to ask about unclaimed luggage, or any passenger last night who might have fitted the woman’s description.

  Norman had his mother’s funeral on his mind. He was no help.

  Nor was Melbourne when the post office chap got a phone call through to an uninterested sergeant, who showed less interest still when Ogden described the stranger now sleeping in a pine box in Moe’s cellar. No wedding ring, had an Italian look about her, died maybe of blood loss after giving birth beside a railway line. It didn’t sound like a priority to the city sergeant.